We are delighted to announce the forthcoming opening of Zhang Zipiao’s solo exhibition The Ultimate Moist! at WHITE SPACE BEIJING on May 12th , 2018. This is the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition includes recent paintings the artist created in 2017 and 2018.

Influenced by the culture of YouTube, Instagram and other social networks, Zhang in her creative process indirectly ponders the condition of the globalised everyday life, and the politics of representation, delineating contents that are oftentimes dismissed by social ethical frameworks. The painting surfaces reveal direct or nuanced erotic scenes and propositions, suggesting the artist’s affirmation of her ever-shifting position when it comes to subject matters: in works like the Sink, steadily, exclusively and directly, the artist recounts her everyday life in an expressive way, and negotiates with the symbolic narratives found in classical and modern history of art by incorporating reoccurring forms and objects - private spaces, plants, food and animals. On the other hand, in works like Untitled 47, the artist indulges herself in visual puns and jokes that are mostly metaphoric in nature. With numbers of textual elements that pertain less to meanings, but more to the visual structure and ambience of a work, Zhang in her unique, disrespectful fashion explores the economy of painterly ethics, balancing playfully her individual experience and the relationship with numerous gender and cultural communities. This ever-shifting positioning of herself maps Zhang’s recent works against those shown in previous exhibitions, and further demonstrates the continued strength of her practice that was previously described as “immense tensity” or “unique tension.”

Zhang Zipiao (b. 1993, Beijing, China) studied at Maryland Institute College of Art from 2011 to 2012, and received her BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA in 2015. Recent exhibitions include Shallow Painting 101, Star Gallery, Beijing, China (2017), and Sexy Hysteria, Ying Space, Beijing, China (2015). Zhang Zipiao currently lives and works in Beijing, China.